PsycheDADA / Transpiring at the cross-roads of the “psychedelic” and “DADA”, this very special project marks the first time that AKA Gallery and PAVED Arts have collaborated on a curated project from the ground floor up. For the opening reception both galleries will be turned over to PsycheDADA, deploying a range of quizzical, seductive and confounding projects that push a variety of artistic boundaries.

September 16th – October 27th, 2011.

Co-curated by Tod Emel (AKA) and David LaRiviere (PAVED Arts).

Transpiring at the cross-roads of the “psychedelic” and “DADA”, this very special project marks the first time that AKA Gallery and PAVED Arts have collaborated on a curated project from the ground floor up. For the opening reception both galleries will be turned over to PsycheDADA, deploying a range of quizzical, seductive and confounding projects that push a variety of artistic boundaries. Tod Emel has selected the work of Larry Carlson, as well as the collaborative duo Arthur Desmarteau & Allison Moore, for the occasion. To engage with these efforts PAVED Arts will present three media projects that variously challenge the limits of comprehension.

Keith Murray (Calgary) will invoke “Neon Gods” with installation work as immersive as it is captivating. Murray’s practice in particular, explores queer theory, gender, theology and trans-politics, and the contextual nature of experience itself, often using and abusing the conventions of religious fable, pop-culture, the kitsch and the carnivalesque.

Noxious Sector (Dartmouth,Victoria, Seattle) is comprised of a trio of trouble-makers: Jackson 2bears, Ted Hiebert and Doug Jarvis. Humour plays an important role with their work, and it is in this regard that the esoteric hi-jinx of Noxious Sector hold court around the boarder-lands of “scientific exploration” with all the zeal of DADA in its prime.

Jeremy Shaw (Berlin) literally experiments with DMT, the worlds most potent psychedelic drug, also known as the “spirit molecule” behind a thousand years of South American cultural spirit quest in the form of “ayahuasca.” With the DMT video installation we are confronted with an unknowable region written across the faces of subjects.